Critical Distance PROGRAMMING PUBLIC ART: Billboard on Shaw by Jenelle Smith

OCAD University’s RBC Centre for Emerging Artists & Designers (CEAD), in partnership with Critical Distance Centre for Curators (CDCC), is pleased to present this Public Art Billboard and Exhibition Essay Career Launcher featuring artwork by Jenelle Smith and a commissioned essay by Kathleen Foran-Spragge, available to download and read here.

Gia is on view at 180 Shaw Street, outside Artscape Youngplace, through Summer 2025.

About the OCAD U Career Launcher Recipients

Jenelle Smith is a first generation Jamaican-Canadian visual artist based in Toronto. Smith is an emerging artist whose dreamlike work delves into intricate concepts of the mind. Working in digital and analog image-based media, Smith addresses topics such as mental health, technology, race, and family. A recent graduate from the OCAD University Photography program, she strives to challenge conventional perceptions and spark conversations through her work.

Kathleen Foran-Spragge is an independent researcher, curator, and writer interested in how patterns of listening and sounding may be transformed to support relationships between humans, and with the more-than-human. Her MFA Exhibition Thesis in Criticism and Curatorial Practice at OCAD University explored how sound and movement can be used to form connections across linguistic divides. 

Since 2016, Critical Distance has programmed the Billboard outside our former home at 180 Shaw Street between Dundas and Queen streets. Thank you to Youngplace for their continued support and participation in this long-running public art initiative.

Thanks to OCAD University’s RBC Centre for Emerging Artists & Designers for their support of this Career Launcher Partnership.

Critical Distance would like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

Image: View of Gia, 2024, by Jenelle Smith at 180 Shaw Street, Toronto. Documentation by Shani K Parsons. Essay edited by Alison Cooley.